Loren Long and I first met in 1999, when I was Enquirer sports editor and Long was working with sportswriter John Erardi on the Opening Day special section for that season.

The opening of Great American Ball Park was still four years off and Erardi was looking for an illustrator who could help him design the ballpark of Cincinnati's dreams. C.F. Payne suggested Long, who was doing freelance work illustrating national magazine covers at the time – and loved his Cincinnati baseball. He created a cover, featuring Denny Neagle and Greg Vaughn ("New hope comes to Cincinnati"), plus a large, two-page spread with a suggested design for a new ballpark, all in his now-signature American Regionalist style.

Though Long has appeared in the Enquirer and on Cincinnati.com often in the intervening years, signing books and appearing at schools, it has been seven years since the Enquirer last sat down to talk with him.

With his new children's book, "Otis and the Scarecrow" (the fifth in the Otis series), just out and already on the New York Times bestseller list, catching up was long overdue.

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Cincinnati artist/author Loren Long is on a national tour for his latest "Otis" book and will stop at Blue Manatee in Oakley Sept. 20.

Nearly 2 million 'Otis' books sold

In the intervening years, Long has become a nationally known children's publishing rock star, with parents, kids, publishers, teachers and librarians forming his fan base. Nearly 2 million of his "Otis" books, starring a kind and spirited tractor and his farm animal friends, are in print, dating to 2009.

Even in person, Long has remarkable storytelling skills. Hardly a question needs to be asked.

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Loren Long and Enquirer sportswriter John Erardi created a proposed design for the Reds ballpark in April 1999.(Photo: The Enquirer)

He recounts his journey, from magazine work to getting a chance to create book jackets for young adult novels, then some children's stories. He was a modest hit until 2003, when he was commissioned to illustrate a book written by Madonna, "Mr. Peabody's Apples." The story wasn't a hit with critics, but the illustrations were. Long's career would take off from there.

"For me, this publishing career's just been the funnest thing," he says.

Long got more work, won awards and was selected to illustrate a new edition of a classic, "The Little Engine That Could," which came out in 2005. He wrote his first story, "Drummer Boy," in 2008, and followed it up with the original "Otis" in 2009. In 2010, he was picked to illustrate President Barack Obama's children's book, "Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters."

The idea for Otis came from his two sons (the oldest is now in his first year in college). His wife, Tracy, would drive the boys to pre-school and kindergarten, with the three creating stories on the way to school about a tractor called "Little Green Samuel." Seven or eight years later, when he was illustrating the work of other children's book writers, he asked about that story.

Eventually, he would tell his own version, intending it to be a single story about friendship. The tractor wouldn't be green, and it would have its own personality. The name Otis came from "The Andy Griffith Show." He wrote it all before he even knew what any of it would look like.

"Who would have ever thought – not me – that I would be a writer?" Long marvels.

"I really had a feeling like the book would be a book I would like when I was little," says Long, a self-described reluctant reader as a kid.

Finding the meaning in his work

There's a growing audience for Otis. A boy at one of his appearances couldn't wait to tell Long about his puppy named Otis. He also heard from a couple whose young son's first word was "Otis."

"The goodness of the character has come through," he says. "In this crazy world, there's room for it."

The cover of Loren Long's latest bestseller.(Photo: Provided)

Long thought his planned career as an illustrator meant he would work solo most days, but his writing career has changed that. He's in demand at bookstores and schools, and for bigger speaking engagements (though most of those speaking requests will have to wait until after his youngest son, now 16, graduates from high school).

"I love having a real audience that I get to meet. That I hear from. That I can see."

He's still in demand to illustrate other people's books, but he can set his own pace, doing one book or a book-and-a-half every year. He thinks he has at least one more Otis story, maybe more.

His next book, one he has written, tentatively titled "Little Tree," is in the process of being illustrated and painted in his enclosed treehouse-like studio in Madeira. It should be out in the fall of 2015. And, yes, he does still paint. The iPad in the studio is a recent addition, mostly for e-mail.

Wherever he goes he asks his audience two questions: "How many of you can think of a book you loved when you were a tiny kid?" And then: "How many of you can remember, and feel, the person who read it to you?"

The question works whether he is speaking to parents and young children, high school students, or an audience of 80- and 90-year-olds.

"For me, not to overstate this, but it's a real warm, fuzzy place to dedicate one's life work." Long says. "At the end of day, that's what my work is for.